Mood is set to Fiji time but no night of the iguana

Julie Power

THEY may be the only couple of unrelated Fijian banded iguanas in captivity in Australia, but the threat of extinction is not enough to turn the bobbing into babies.

Unlike the royals' recent success at carrying on the Windsor line, a pair of Fijian banded iguanas the Australian Reptile Park has been trying to breed for two seasons don't seem to have it in them. The supervisor of reptiles and spiders at the park, Julie Mendezona, said the couple had shown some limited signs of interest.

Just mates ... the Australian Reptile Park's Fijian banded iguanas (the male is on the left) are believed to be the only unrelated specimens in Australia. They have not mated despite the efforts of keepers. Photo: Ben Rushton

The male had bobbed his head up and down, the standard courtship move, and the female had bobbed hers in response. The male even mounted the female iguana, but failed to follow through.

''The male is a fizzer, there's just no action,'' she said. The zoo had tried everything to set the mood, including mimicking the humidity, the temperature and the day and night cycle of Fiji where these highly endangered iguanas live in trees.

The reptile park acquired the male iguana from the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in the hopes of trying to mate the pair and repopulate Australian zoos. The male is believed to be the only male iguana in an Australian zoo which is not directly related to the female.

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Age could also weary them. Iguanas are known to live between 20 and 25 years, and the male and female are more than 20 years of age. ''We presume they're getting old, and that they're running out of time. It's not like they're spring chickens,'' she said.

The zoo will continue to encourage the reptiles to mate next season, around September next year. Ms Mendezona said if that failed they will consider trying to mate the female with a related male, which she admitted was less than ideal.

Even when everything seemed perfect, mating animals in captivity is never guaranteed. A Taronga Zoo spokesman said sometimes genetic compatibility was no guarantee of breeding success although skilled animal husbandry could sometimes overcome that problem.

The Fijian government has banned all exports of the Fijian banded iguanas. It claims most iguanas in zoos around the world were either obtained illegally or descended from smuggled animals.